Ascent New Brunswick promotes a respectful, equitable, diverse, and just climbing community that accepts the qualities and differences of our broader population. Ascent New Brunswick advocates for an inclusive community that welcomes, respects, and values the diversity of climbers and supports all to actively engage or seek to engage in our membership, executive and board.
Ascent New Brunswick expects its members to be sensitive to our diverse culture and be respectful in action. Ascent New Brunswick demands the elimination of any acts of discrimination, exclusion, or harassment, ranging from climber interactions at the crag or gym to the naming of routes with offensive labels. Such acts will not be tolerated.
Ascent New Brunswick relies on its membership and the broader climbing community to adopt and promote these values. While Ascent New Brunswick endorses and promotes equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice, it is the responsibility of the individual to be mindful of their actions. Positive community support is essential in maintaining an inclusive, equitable and respectful culture.
Ascent New Brunswick seeks to uphold and advance justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and access. But what do these concepts mean to us?
Justice – our understanding of justice means treating people fairly, believing that everyone should have the same opportunities in life and that no one should face discrimination because of their identity or appearance. Thus, justice seeks to identify oppression and the systems responsible, and dismantle unjust practices when we encounter them to create systems supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Equity – for our community this means everyone should have equal access to climbing at our crags. To create equity, we need to eliminate any barriers preventing some people more than others from accessing climbing. Barriers may be related to race, gender, age, ability, indigenous status, sexual orientation, and other intersecting identities. Promoting the goal of equity relies on every member of the climbing community being accepting of all climbers and welcoming to new members of the climbing community.
Diversity – our goal is to have a diverse member base. We are committed to being welcoming to everyone in New Brunswick who might want to partake in outdoor rock climbing. Our member base tends to be populated mostly by affluent white men. We want our member base to become more reflective of the general population and include racialized and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals and people of all ages and abilities to be welcomed as members of our community.
Inclusion – we want our climbing community to not exclude anyone based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, body type, age, physical ability, socio-economic status, or any other identity. We want members of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities and racialized to feel welcome and wanted in the climbing community. This may mean that we will organize climbing events to create a space and focus our efforts on actively embracing people of all backgrounds. This also means that we expect every member of Ascent New Brunswick to be respectful and open minded towards people seeking to become part of our community and to play an active role in spearheading change.
Access – in the climbing context, access is often defined as the physical access to a climbing destination. However, access includes all things involved in approaching climbing. This includes, but is not limited to, climbing gear, knowledge, guidance, transportation, availability of facilities, financial barriers, physical ability, and many more. Thus, a person unable to go climbing because they cannot find a mentor is as much of an access issue as being unable to climb because of land ownership conflicts.